see also

“It’s not my place to comment on any of my competitors,” Buttigieg dodged. “But what I will say it’s a good time for mayors to being stepping up. I know this is not conventional, you’re used to people who have been in Washington for a long time.”

Buttigieg, who would be the first openly gay president if elected, went on to tout the positive qualities he sees as being the mayor of a small town in a Midwest state – an area critical to the 2020 election if Democrats are going to unseat President Trump.

“There’s a particular perspective that comes from a city in the industrial Midwest that’s exactly the kind of place that this president targeted with his message of nostalgia and resentment,” he said.

see also

“I’ll engage him to the extent when he does something wrong, he needs to be called out. And when he says something false, we need to respond by presenting the truth,” Buttigieg said. “But I don’t want to go on his show.”

He explained that when politicians and candidates try to come up with zingers to hit back at Trump, they fail.

“When we’re in that mode, it takes us to a place where it’s almost as if he’s the one we’re trying to impress,” Buttigieg said. “Where to me, when he calls me a silly name, that’s him bidding to get my attention – and I’m not going to give it to him.”

He said it’s important for Democrat candidates not to allow Trump to distract them with the “craziness” that’s going on over there.

“We got to find a way to resist wrongdoing and yet not let it distract us from the core of what we’re trying to do, which is not about him, it’s about you,” he said to cheers from the audience.